https://arab.news/9c4tv
- Mohammed Sarur was under US sanctions for funnelling millions of dollars from Revolutionary Guards
BEIRUT: The bullet-riddled body of a Lebanese man under US sanctions for funnelling money from Iran to Hamas via Hezbollah has been found in a mountain villa in the town of Beit Mery just outside Beirut.
Mohammed Sarur, 57, had been shot at least five times. He was found with an undisclosed sum of money, which his killers had left behind.
The gun used to kill Sarur was found soaked with bleach to wipe off fingerprints and glove traces. Security cameras showed the victim had entered the house and never left, and investigators were unable to contact the villa’s tenant.
Sarur’s family spoke to the media on Wednesday in their village of Labweh in eastern Lebanon, accompanied by two Hezbollah MPs. They said they had lost contact with Sarur on April 3, denounced what they called a planned crime, and demanded an investigation by Lebanese security forces.
Sarur worked for financial institutions belonging to Hezbollah. In August 2019, the US Treasury imposed sanctions on several people including Sarur for funnelling tens of millions of dollars from the foreign operations arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps through Hezbollah in Lebanon “to Hamas for terrorist attacks originating in the Gaza Strip.”
The Treasury said Sarur was a middle man between the Guards Quds Force and Hamas “and worked with Hezbollah operatives to ensure funds were provided” to Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades.
He had been in charge of all such money transfers since 2014, the Treasury said, and had “an extensive history working at Hezbollah’s sanctioned bank, Bayt Al-Mal.” US authorities blacklisted Bayt Al-Mal as early as 2006.
US Treasury official Jesse Baker met political and financial officials in Beirut last month, and asked them to prevent funds from moving through Lebanon to Hamas.